‘Broadcom’s 2-b investment to have major impact on VMware’s India operations’

Raghu Raghuram, CEO, of VMware

Cloud and virtualisation major VMware is poised to receive a $2-billion investment from Broadcom. The infusion of additional capital from Broadcom will have a significant impact on VMware’s operations and presence in India, said Raghu Raghuram, CEO, VMware. Speaking on the sidelines of VMware Explore in Singapore, Raghuram told businessline: “Broadcom’s $2-billion investment will be significantly felt in India.”

Following the expected completion of the acquisition by the end of October, Broadcom recently announced its commitment to invest $2 billion annually into VMware. The semiconductor manufacturing major is acquiring VMware for $61 billion, and is currently seeking regulatory clearances globally. 

In 2018, VMware had an outlay of $2-billion investment in India over five years.  “The $2-billion investment is well on track to be completed, and India remains a major investment area for us from an internal operations point of view. We will continue to invest in multiple areas, going forward,” Raghuram told businessline. 

Underscoring the importance of its Indian employee base, he noted that every aspect of the company, including IT, business operations, customer operations, global support, and finance, is represented in India. VMware has a talent base of more than 35,000 employees globally, of which, a significant chunk is based in India. 

The company said it has enjoyed secular growth across multiple segments in India. The IT/ITES, Banking, and Telecommunications verticals have been the ‘fulcrum of the business’. VMware is seeing the next big near-term opportunity in the government and public sector. “The sector is starting to make investments at scale as it envisions to provide citizen services without manual intervention to the masses of India,” said Pradeep Nair, Vice-President and MD, India.

It is also seeing opportunities in manufacturing on the edge as interest in reshoring global manufacturing operations to India is growing. Raghuram notes that a lot of manufacturing and logistics activities would require the technology that VMware provides, hence it would be an important area in the future, for the company. 

“India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and we are super bullish. As India tries to become a larger economy in the world, we intend to have a strong presence on the go-to-market side and continue building operations at scale,” Raghuram said. 

Addressing apprehensions in the market around the acquisition trigging need for talent restructuring and layoffs, Raghuram said, “In acquisitions like this, it’s the acquiring company that needs to make their plans and further announce, Once the acquisition is closed you will hear from Broadcom on how they are directing their talent and investments.”